Recall of Associates Generated to Emotionally Toned Stimulus Words

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology Vol. 48; no. 1; pp. 82 - 94
• Main Author: MCDOWALL, JOHN
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Old Chelsea, PQ Canadian Psychological Association 01.03.1994; Educational Publishing Foundation
• Subjects: Associative Processes; Biological and medical sciences; Emotional Content; Emotions; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Language; Learning. Memory; Memory; Psychology; Psychology of learning; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Recall; Recall (Learning); Stimulus Parameters; Stimulus Similarity; Word Associations; Word Meaning; Words; Words (Phonetic Units); Human; Emotionality; Memory; Cognition; Recall; Verbal association; Experimental study
• ISSN: 1196-1961; 0008-4255; 1878-7290
• DOI: 10.1037/1196-1961.48.1.82

When subjects are read a list of stimulus words and are asked to generate an associate to each word, recall for associates given to emotionally toned stimulus words is poorer than recall for associates given to stimulus words of a neutral affective tone. The present study reports the results of 4 experiments designed to investigate this finding. Experiment 1 replicated the effect and showed that when subjects associate to an emotionally toned stimulus word, that associate is likely to be a word with a congruent emotional tone. Experiment 2 demonstrated that reducing the number of emotionally toned stimulus words in the word list resulted in an improvement in recall for associates generated to these words. In the third experiment recall for associates generated to emotionally toned stimulus words was poorer if the stimulus words were similar in meaning (eg. worry, anxiety, panic, fear) than if they were dissimilar (eg. anxiety, death, passion, greed). Experiment 4 found that stimulus word properties other than emotionality could be manipulated to demonstrate a differential recall. The results throw doubt on an explanation involving impaired consolidation of the associate due to the arousing properties of the emotional stimulus words. Rather, they are best explained in terms of the inability of the retrieval system to discriminate amongst competing sets of responses which are semantically and emotionally congruent.